Conventionally, in a crankshaft miller for working a crankshaft, a work rest is provided so that a work (crankshaft) can be supported without causing displacement during working.
The work rest is normally secured on a saddle of a cutter unit supported on a bed of the crankshaft miller and a distance between the work rest and the cutter in a longitudinal direction of the bed cannot be adjusted. Therefore, when there are a plurality of kinds of works (or workpieces), portions of the works to be supported become different. Therefore, in recent years, the work rest has been provided movably in an axial direction (longitudinal direction of the bed), independently of the cutter unit and is moved by its own drive means provided within the bed.
However, the crankshaft miller which is designed to move the work rest by the own drive means, such as the above-mentioned conventional crankshaft miller, is difficult to design and produce so as to install the drive means, since the installation space for the drive means is originally quite small. In addition, since the drive means is frequently provided within the bed, difficulty may encountered in discharging chip generated during working.
The present invention improves the foregoing drawbacks. Therefore, it is an object of the invention to provide a crankshaft miller and method of use thereof which can facilitate design and production thereof and smoothly discharge chips.